The Round House (Louise Erdrich)

This story begins with one tragedy, and moves inexorably through several greater and lesser tragedies to end with another. Joe is a Native American boy, 13 years old, living on a reservation in South Dakota, when his mother is brutally raped. The search for her attacker is complicated by her unwillingness to talk about what happened and by the uncertainty about whether the attack took place on tribal land, Federal land, private land, or state land. The legal issues are especially important because Joe's father is a tribal judge, determined to make the best justice he can within the arcane and discriminatory laws governing the tenuous relationship between Indians and Whites. Joe's relationship with his parents, his friends, and his self grow and change in that pivotal summer. The book is alternately touching, funny, and devastating. Joe's experiences are drawn with unflinching and tender realism. Highly recommended.